Bushwhacking and that's no euphemism
I got offered to go on a "Bushwalk" with a friend from work and his family, I'll be honest I did think I would make up some fantastic excuse on the day or the day before and decline but then the thought of being out and donning some fitnees gear took over, so I agreed.
I should have thought something was off when I asked him if I'd be back in time for pilates at 5pm (yes get me I'm an avid pilates go-er now, I'll write about that on another post. He assured me we would "Probably be back for 5"
We agreed that we would meet in Tharwa car park as from there in there's no signal and lets be honest I would have got lost if I hadn't follwed him.
I'll set the scene, I wake up at stoopid O'Clock and it's -4 degrees, Still ever hopeful that as I live in Australia it will indeed be at least 26 degrees later in the day. (Nearly 7 years of living here and I'm still not used to the freezing winters here) I dressed accordingly for the bushwalk I was going on, Lorna Jane leggins (no more Cotton On ones for me), new trainers that have only been worn 5 times, matching black top and my cool new bright pink jumper. Thought I'd better take a coat just in case, also new but just a KMart cheapo one, but strangley the warmest coat I've got. I was prepared and packed my lunch the night before, was intending to take my cute little Nike rucksack but Sean offered me his camoflaugued hunting one with added camelbak so I thought I'd go with his as the camelbak wouldn't fit in the cute little Nike bag. Didn't want to be lugging around too mcuh extra weight so just filled it up with 1ltr of water, well seem as we were just going on a gentle stroll I didn't think I needed any more. Made a cheese sandwich, 2 baby tomato's and some nuts, enough to last all day at least.
It was an hours drive to the first meet and then another 40 minutes drive to the actual start of the bushwalk, when I met my friend at the randevous, his first question after studying my outfit was "Have you come prepared" "Prepared for what" I challenged, When he said a bush walk I told him I didn't have anything suitable and surely I'll be ok, he said he would have lent me "gear" if he'd known I wasn't prepared. Well you'd have thought after that conversation I would have jumped in the car and driven straight home but no I followed him to the start. There was also someone else at the randevous point, someone who I found out 3 hours later my friend didn't actually know him, he was the friend of my friends friend. Keeping up? Also one of the son's of this guy was wearing a sombrero so again I figured perfect attire for a gentle stroll. Picture this, all of them looked like something out of a Kathmandu catalogue, me in my Lorna Janes stood out like sore thumb.
After braving the public toilet and scanning for scaries at the randevous point, temp checked on trusty fitness band and yup still 4 degrees, I followed my friend who was actually a passenger in his other friends van. So 3 cars in total. Vanessa (my friends friend) offered me to go in Sombrero wearing hat's car but my friend said "Oh it's better if we have the 4x 4 with us in case any one gets stuck.... YET still I followed them. So Vanessa in her van with her 4 kids and my friend, his wife, their 2 kids, Sombreo family x 4 in their car and me in the trusty 4x4 trundled along to start this gentle stroll. After doing a U-ey on the road and re finding the actual turning, we all drove along this dusty dirt track, through 2 massive puddles that had ice on (before we all cracked it) No match for me in the Discovery and actually feeling pretty excited that I'd done some form of off roading (surely) we had indeed arrived. Everyone piled out of the cars introductions given and typically all the females went to use the loo (a bloody drop toilet, still cant get used to these, just yuck, but better than a bush wee) bit more milling around then we were off. Book signed to say who we were and number plate details, I was suitably impressed someone would at least know we were out but did we really need all that infomation being logged on a manky old notenook exposed to the elements when we were just doing a gentle stroll??
Our gentle stroll did indeed start off as a gentle stroll, for all of about 10 minutes, then we're veering off left along something far from a track, long grass, longer grass and lets chuck a bit more of longer wet grass in for good measure. I actually felt quite positive chatting along to a bunch of strangers while tramping along and aroung this ever increasing long grass. It was all great until Sombrero wearing kid's dad who now we'll call him Old Mate (a friendly Aussie term used for just about everyone) stopped and said quite calmly "Where's my son?" now lets really set the the scene, my friend who will now be known as Mountain Goat (a name I think you can work out why he's getting that) was no where to be seen, and actually didn't even know we'd lost Old Mate's kid until the day after when we were back at work. Us 3 mums in the group stopped dead in our tracks and almost got mother bear, Sombrero wearing kid, was enjoying this and said "Imagine if we'd really lost him, and it turned out to be some sort of a horror film" who even is this kid I asked?? Old Mate is now calling for his son, but not as frantically as the 3 mother bears, what seemed like about 20 minutes but may have ony been 17, this little head pops up over the brow of the hump, quite literally looking like he'd be fighting off wolves. Old Mate calmly says "Oh there he is" and continues to walk the bush. 2 hours in and morning coffee consumed, except there was no coffee and no snacks, rememeber what was in my rucksack, but the thought was there, I did think a lot during the walk that someone surely is going to suggest turning back, surely these kids aren't really going to be expected to walk up a bloody mountain. But yup they absolutely were. But most of all I kept thinking we are NOT making this mountain in 6 hours like Mountain Goat said we would.
In fact it took us 4 hours to get to the top, of which I might add, was icy, STEEP, scary AND did I mention icy? The kids and Mountain Goat walked up it as if it was an elevator, meanwhile little old me on all 4's climbing like a bloody bear for fear of falling and also not sure my brand new trainers had such a good grip on them, I did make it to the top, only to look up and realise there's more to walk. The kids are already up there and half way through lunch, Mountain Goat and Old mate on their way up, Meanwhile the 3 mother bears contemplated staying where we were, but no the kids called to their resepective mums and beckoned them up. Luckily for me Ob took me bouldering on Mothers day a few weeks back, and so not be shown up by him I scaled each course there like a pro (of course in my dreams!) so I felt like I could managed these rocks with ease. Yeh right, apart from the fact there was ice and no handy holds like there was at bouldering and no colours depicting where to hold or what way to scale said mountain. Still undeterred and having to reach the top I soildered on. The last bit of climbing the rock I had to force my way through some spikey old random wild bush it was either that or go over, I figure through would be easier.
Did I fail to mention that while climbing for 4 hours to get to the top of the mountain the bush we were indeed walking through was in the terrible bush fires we had last year so consequently every tree I grabbed hold of to haul my tired ass up the mountain inevidably snapped and then also covered me in charcoal, Even those ones that looked like they had some life in them, nope they snapped off as well, oh and don't forget all the little mossy humps that look like they would support my weight. They did NOT. There were several moments where I contemplated pushing Mountain Goat off the cliff but then who would I have several coffee breaks a day with at work. So I figured he could survive for a bit longer.
One of the highlights (please read that with the highest degree of sarcasm) when we were nearing the top of the mountain, I said to Vanessa "We're really not going to make this in 6 hours" she almost gave herself whip lash when she turned to me and shrieked "He told you 6, he TOLD me 7" his wife then pipes up in stictches saying "Are you serious, we won't get this done within 10 hours" Slighly ever so fuming, not only because my brand new trainers were getting covered in charcaol, my ankles cut to shred from all the dead spikey trees I was having to walk through, also every other branch being swiped across my face from who ever was in front of me, nope not even that my 1ltr of water was now gone and I still had another 5 hours of walking to do but fuming because as ever hopeful as I was, I now had to admit to myself that I was going to miss Big Brother. Mountain Goat you will pay, it was hell week and I was missing the nomination challenge, well quite ironically I was in my own hell week. Sigh
After spending way too long at the top and yes the views were amazing, stunning and very beautiful, but after only packing a sandwich and 2 baby tomato's lunch quite frankly for me was 59 minutes too long. Of course the decent was equally appealing, Mountain Goat floated down like Mary Poppins and her magical umbrealla, while the rest of us, struggled on the ICE, yes the ICE. The kids were equally as agile as Mountain Goat and there was no fear of them taking their time. Vanessa and Old mate and myself included were dreading the decent, Mountain Goat took no notice of this and merrily skipped on ahead. Every single step the rest of us took was calculated, judged and tested for its stability before commiting to the step, so to say it was evident it was going to be a very slow trek down was an understatement.
After navigating the ICE, Old Mate decided on several occasions to fall over and for the first 15 times, I was quite concerned and would stop and ask him if he was ok, but after that and feeling quite faint from only having a sandwich and 2 baby tomatos oh and also even more angrier because I realised I wasn't going to get home to buy my limited edition brand new new trainers that were only realeased to 200 pairs and going on sale at 6pm, would have liked to have messaged Sean but the only signal was when we were on top of the mountain (and no that's no joke, Old Mate's phone rang as soon as we got to the summit) At one stage Old Mate was lying on his back like a turtle not moving and all sense of concern and care was lost, like my enthusiasm for bloody bushwhacking. So the kindess thing to do was to quite literally walk over him an not even acknowledge him. In fairness all 3 mother bears did the same, it's quite by luck he got himself up I think, other wise he'd still be there now.
My every 30 second question to Mountain Goat of "Are we there yet" was answered by "Nearly there", I can confirm after 3 hours of asking that, we were still no where near and the best bit.... wait for it.... It was starting to get dark, but that's ok, we all had torches... right .... WRONG. we had Old Mate's torch on his camera that started off on 27% and after about 30 minutes we were down to 2% and for some reason it started to flash, so not only did we not know where we were going, we were in the dark with some sort of strobe party going on. I was mourning my new new trainers and Mountain Goat kept talking about how pretty the bloody stars were, never mind the fact his wife was literally and figueratively no where to be seen (later found out she'd hurt her knee really bad, If Mountain Goat had been less Mountain Goat and more Wombat he would have maybe realised)
We finally reached the car after 9 hours, and to say I was relieved is an understatement, when I got home, the first thing Ob said to me "I'm so glad I didn't go" Next time son, next time I'm dragging you I promise.
Did I mention there was no track,
NOT, double sigh.
